Electric Hypercars : With the Model S, it became clear that EVs could provide stunning straight-line performance, courtesy of Tesla. And kudos to Elon and Co. for acknowledging that EVs had to be better as opposed to just silent and smooth. A great way to get car fans on board and excited, and promoting performance for EVs also neatly fit with their green credentials.
What was also cool was that behind the great acceleration was real science: the huge torque electric motors providing from zero, the extra weight on the driven wheels and the fact that with fast electronic ‘epoch’ (on-off power), the traction control system and electric motor combo could output more power than could a slow ‘epoch’ combustion engine.
This, naturally, turned into the ‘more is more’ extrapolation: bigger and more motors, bigger batteries, more torque, and more explosive performance. And if you can make EV performance sedans that do so well, why not EV sportscars and hypercars? The reasoning was solid: green credentials, raw performance, and all the high-tech. There would be a lineup of potential owners.
But they haven’t. The majority of EV hypercars are one-trick ponies. Most of what they do is accelerate in a straight line. And while the explosive act is startling and jaw-dropping to witness at first, it’s not fun to repeat over and over again. There’s little to no interaction with the car. You stomp down on the accelerator, hold on tight, and are shot, trebuchet-style, to 200kph. There’s no gear-shifting, no revving up the powerband in each gear, and, of course, no exhaust note. And repeated launches can cause passengers, and even drivers, car sick.
Coming out of corners, in particular, steering, handling and throttle metering are even more problematic. Yes, you can design for grip, and you can work out decent body control. What’s lacking, though, is litheness, agility and driver involvement. So much weight and torque are being sent through the wheels that the steering feel gets buried by it. Most of these electric hypercars weigh north of two tonnes, with a few of the extreme ones as heavy as 2,500kgs. And some have silly amounts of power, often in
the neighborhood of 2,000hp, with four motors. We suspect this lack of engagement is one of the reasons Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren and last but certainly not least, Porsche, don’t have production EV hypercars just yet and why some sports and performance carmakers have started to slowly but surely reacquaint combustion-engine-based cars in their lineup.
The leap is obvious, and the challenge is, can the electric hypercar endure? What is clear is that they’ll need to evolve, just as hybrids and diesels did (seriously, remember how terrible they were) and that auto-makers will need to make them ‘cool’. Before these cars can reach the success everyone hopes they’ll have, a whole lot has to change.